What do you guys think about this HIIT program?

[IronFist]

Here (http://www.musclechemistry.com/showthread/t-14294.html).

There's some background info which you can skim through. Then the basic routine is presented in tables.

This is more for my friend (the one from the other thread) than me.

It sounds strange to me that a program that progress from 4 minutes to 15 minutes total over 8 weeks (working out 3 times per week) could burn more fat than running slower for a couple hours 3 times a week.

Thanks.

[Toby]

Well, I do 20/10 x 10 = 5 min. I pace myself to do 5 min, so I doubt I could do 15 min. Certainly not if I was sprinting flat out every 20. But's that with 10 s rests. 30 s rests are a lot easier on the body, so I can see it could be done. But you (he) might lose interest of doing 15 min three times a week. I do intervals twice a week and that's enough for me. They're hard on my cardio system and my legs.

Re the burning fat. He doesn't give references (I think - I just skimmed the articles). But I'd guess it might be Tabata's research. If so, he advocates 20/10, not 30/30. I dunno. I don't do it primarily to burn fat, but it hasn't helped me. I've been constant weight since doing it for 5-6 months (dunno about body fat %).

[Ford Prefect]

There has been a good deal on research done on this besides Tabata. All of which have shown similar results with various different sprint/active-recovery protocols.

IF,

This burns fat because of the energy systems being used. Your aerobic energy system use oxygen to produce ATP for very low-intesity muscular contraction over long periods of time. The fat loss benefits from this "cardio" is mainly from a caloric deficit caused by the long duration of exercise.

A sprint is powered by anaerobic energy systems once the muscle runs out of it's initial ATP supply. This is garnered from the muscle glycogen (just as if you were lifting weights), but what happens when muscle glycogen stores are depleted? Well your body dips into it's glycogen reserves in order to perform the task at hand. That's exactly what fat is... glycogen that has been put away for use at another time. This type of training thus leads to actively burning fat in order to maintain the exercise and it leads to fat burning because it causes a caloric deficit as well.

It's not a bad program, but I'd defitely recommend at least a 5 minute warm-up before starting the sprint-jog cycles. Hitting a track is much more effective than a treadmill in these cycles too, but it's winter and I don't know what your local climate is like. Something to keep in mind though. A couple other programs that incorporate this type of interval training which I've had personal success with is:

http://www.t-mag.com/nation_articles/251run2.html

http://www.trainforstrength.com/Endurance1.shtml

If you are stuck indoors and you gym has one, definately try the versa-climber. They are absolutely killer for this stuff. Also, as you can see from these programs, it's relatively easy to design your own with many different activeties. As long as it's something you can switch from high-intensity to low-intensity you just need to come up with varying high-intensity active phases and low-intesity recovery phases.